Baltimore Beautiful: Oops I Haul'd It Again!

I took a trip to Sephora the other day to get a new fragrance for my Fiance's birthday... and accidentally had a mini-haul for myself (thanks honey!). Disclaimer, I did have 2 products to return, so that's how I justified it to myself, I'll talk about these in another post. Here's a little preview of what jumped into my basket (minus Nick's gift because I didn't know if I'd be posting this before I had given him his gift or not):

I began at the overwhelming wall of men's fragrances, gravitating towards the ones with the coolest bottles. Nick wears Dolce & Gabbana's Light Blue everyday - which I really do like, but it has very soft, subtle notes - so I knew I wanted to get him a more "spicy" fragrance for nighttime. Here's a glimpse of the image I had in my mind:

I honed in on two fragrances, Viktor & Rolf's Spicebomb and YSL's L'Homme. While both have spicier, peppery notes, I decided on the YSL one because I felt it was a bit more of a middle ground. If Nick gets into switching up his fragrances, I would definitely like to add Spicebomb because it is so yummy!

Foreground: YSL L'Homme Background: birthday card I made for him

Now onto my beauty finds, I have been looking for a nice pinky-nude lipstick for a bit now and found NARS' lipstick in Crusing and one from BITE in Retsina. The colors read similarly, but they do have different finishes, when swatched and on the lip. Retsina is more opaque with a satin finish, while the Crusing one has more of a semi-sheen/semi-gloss. Both look good with MAC's lipliner in Dervish (if you want to bring out the pink tones) or Whirl (if you want to bring out the brownish tones) and layered with MAC Nymphette gloss.

While in the NARS aisle, there was a NARS rep there giving someone a demo of the Dual Intensity eyeshadows that got me so interested I became less and less nonchalant with my eavesdropping. She showed how to use it dry to get a more subtle wash of color, and wet for a more opaque, metallic finish. I threw the Himalia color in my basket figuring with it's brownish-taupe color would work well with my everyday neutral eye looks. I wanted to be able to get the most use of out the product because it's so frickin' pricey! After using it for only a few days, I have found it to be buildable and I'm already having dreams of what shade I would like to get next. Also, she recommended using a synthetic hair brush.

I picked up Viktor & Rolf's Flowerbomb ladies fragrance in a rollerball on my way to the checkout. It has a very sweet, floral, and addictive smell. I spontaneously grabbed a mini size Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer

to give it a try. I've heard good things about this, I'll be interested to see if it's really worth the price and can replace my Garnier BB Cream (specifically the combo-oily skin one). This may be going back if it doesn't blow me away - $20 is pricey for only 1oz of product.

Last but not least... I was looking around at Nordstrom for the Armani counter wanting to see what all the hype is about surrounding the Luminous Silk Foundation (which I couldn't find at any department store in my mall), I was stopped in my tracks. My eyes were drawn to the Illuminating Bronzing Powder at the Bobbi Brown counter. I don't know why it is considered a bronzer, but the Antigua shade gives a beautiful rosey, glow-from-within color to the cheeks. Sephora only seems to carry 2 of the 6 shades online. To me, these are much more wearable than the much obsessed about shimmer bricks, which I find way too sparkly. I definitely recommend checking these out!!! So that wraps up my haul for this time.

I always have this internal argument with myself when purchasing from Sephora, I LOVE swatching the products to really determine whether I like them or not. However, I also REALLY love getting the cash back from Ebates (right now Sephora is offering 8% cash back!). If you can hold back from that "I MUST HAVE THIS NOW" urge, I recommend waiting to put your order in online using Ebates - Sephora online usually offers better samples and rewards gifts as well. In fact, I recommend checking out Ebates when purchasing from any store online for available cash back and coupon codes. Who doesn't want make money for shopping? (That's another justification I make to myself for my online shopping habits.)

Until next time... stay beautiful!